Abstract

Peripheral vision is important in our everyday lives because it allows us to gather a visual sense of our surroundings—without it, we would see the world through "tunnel vision." The survival of our ancient ancestors depended on their ability to use peripheral vision to find prey and to avoid predators. Almost everything we do—from riding a bike, to dribbling a basketball, to reading a book—depends on peripheral vision. In this human biology science fair project, you will test the limits of peripheral vision and learn how to understand your results based on the anatomy of the human eye.

Objective

The objective of this human biology science fair project is to explore how the perception of objects, using peripheral vision, is influenced by the objects' shapes and colors.

Credits

David Whyte, PhD, Science Buddies

Elmer's® is a registered trademark of Elmer's Products, Inc.

Popsicle® is a registered trademark of Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream, which is a subsidiary of Unilever Supply Chain, Inc.

APA Style

Science Buddies Staff.
(2014, October 10).
Now You See It, Now You Don't! Test Your Peripheral Vision.
Retrieved August 2, 2015
from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBio_p016.shtml

Share your story with Science Buddies!

Introduction

Peripheral vision, or side vision, is the part of your vision that detects objects outside the direct line of vision. When you look at something, you use central vision to focus on the details, and peripheral vision to gather information about the surroundings. For example, your peripheral vision tells you where to look if someone enters the room, or if a car is approaching from the side. And as you read these words, you are using central vision to focus on a word or a few words, and peripheral vision to see where the words are within the sentence, the paragraph, and the page.

The light-sensitive lining at the back of your eye, called your retina, has light-receiving cells, called cones and rods. Only the cones are sensitive to color. Cone cells are most abundant in the central region of the retina, called the fovea. This region gives you the sharpest view of an object.

Rod cells are better at sensing objects in dim light than cone cells are, but they are not sensitive to color. Rod cells are also very sensitive to motion, and are responsible for your ability to detect things moving toward you before you can focus on them. This characteristic probably had strong adaptive value during the early stages of human evolution.

In this human biology science fair project, you will investigate the range of your peripheral vision, and determine how this range is affected by color, shape, ambient (meaning surrounding) light, and motion.

Terms and Concepts

Peripheral vision

Central vision

Retina

Cone cells

Rod cells

Fovea

Questions

What types of cells are responsible for peripheral vision, and how are they distributed in the retina?

Why does an object need to come close to the center of your vision before you see its color and shape? (Hint: What part of your retina is receiving light from an object as it moves across your field of vision?)

Why does it usually seem that our surroundings are clear and in focus, when in reality, only a small region of our visual field is in focus?

How many rod and cone cells are there in the average human eye? How many of each cell type are there per square millimeter?

News Feed on This Topic

,
,

Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results! Learn more about the News Feed

Share your story with Science Buddies!

Experimental Procedure

To start this science fair project, you will first build a vision protractor. Place the foam board in front of you on a flat surface, with the long side closest to you.

Stick the pushpin into the foam board, near the long edge and halfway along the 2-foot edge of the foam board. Be sure there is nothing underneath that will get harmed by the pushpin.

Tie the 1 ½-foot piece of string to one end of the pencil, and tie the other end of the string around the pushpin.

Now draw a half-circle with a 1-foot radius. Use your ruler to be sure your piece of string is 1 foot in length after you've tied the ends and before you begin drawing. Now shorten the string by tying more of the string around either the pencil or the pushpin, and draw another, smaller half-circle, with a ½-inch radius. Again, use your ruler to make sure the piece of string is ½ an inch long before you draw.

Cut the half circles out of the foam board, as in Figure 1. The small circle should be just big enough for your nose.

Place the protractor at the center of the small half circle. Tape the 1-foot-long piece of string at the 10° angle mark and extend the angle from the left side first. See Figure 1. Mark the edge of the foam board at the 10° mark. Repeat for angles from 10° to 90° for both left and right sides.

Figure 1. Vision protractor with plastic cup handle. Look at the focus point as a volunteer moves the colored object toward the center of your vision. Record the angle at which the object was first observed.

Now stick the pushpin in at the edge of the half-circle, directly across from the nose hole. This will be your focus point. See Figure 1. Again, be sure it is not poking anything important underneath. You might want to use a piece of clear tape over top of it to secure it to the foam board so it does not fall out.

Use glue to attach the plastic cup to the bottom of the foam board. The cup will serve as a handle, so should be glued somewhere near the center of the foam board.
Now that you have made the vision protractor, it is time to make some colored objects to test your peripheral vision.

Use colored markers to draw simple shapes, such as rectangles, squares, circles, and triangles, on the paper. You might start with objects about 1 square inch in area.

Color the shapes in. Each shape should only be one color. Try red, green, and yellow. Alternatively, you can cut the shapes out of colored paper.

Note the size and color of the shapes in your lab notebook. Create a data table, like the one below, in your lab notebook to plan your experiment before you begin. Write down the date and time, what objects you will be using, etc.

Cut the colored shapes out. Attach the shapes to the Popsicle sticks with the clear tape.

Now you are ready to start the experiments. Using the cup as a handle, hold the foam board base up to your face and put your nose in the center hole.

Have your volunteer hold the popsicle stick with the attached shape so that it is perpendicular against the curved side of the base, starting at 0°.

Have your partner move the object slowly and evenly from the edge toward the middle while you keep your eyes on the focus point.

Have your volunteer stop moving the object when you can first detect it, but both of you should stay where you are. Be sure to note the angle at which you first detected the object.

It might be helpful to have a second volunteer write the angles down so that you don't have to stop the experiment to make notes in your lab notebook.

Now have your volunteer keep moving the object toward the center of the foam board.

This time, have your volunteer stop moving the object when you can first detect the color of the object. Again, note the angle at which you first detect the color of the object in your lab notebook.

Have your volunteer continue moving the object and note the angle at which you first can make out the shape of the object.

Repeat steps 14-22 two more times with the first object. Then repeat steps 14-22 three times for each additional object. You should end up with at least three readings for each trial.

Here are some questions you might want to focus on:

What color does your peripheral vision respond to best? (What color did you expect to be the easiest to detect?)

What color was the hardest to see using peripheral vision?

Date and Time:

Participants: (Who is moving the object, who is observing, etc.)

Goal of This Experiment: For example, to test different colored objects, etc.

Notes: Add notes about the procedure. Remember to record your data and observations so that someone else could reproduce your results.

Object (shape, color, etc.)

Angle First Observed

Comments (For example: "Aunt Bessie was the test subject for this set of experiments"; "The light was turned down in this set of experiments"; "This is the second trial of three total for this object."

Red triangle, 1 inch

22 degrees

Trial 1:

Red triangle, 1 inch

23 degrees

Trial 2:

Red triangle, 1 inch

21 degrees

Trial 3:

Red triangle, 1 inch

22 degrees

Average for Red triangle, 1 inch:

Blue circle, 2 inches

Table 1. Use a data table similar to this one to record your observations. Use the data table to plan your experiments before you start. Make separate data tables for different experiments if that helps you organize your data.

Share your story with Science Buddies!

Variations

Repeat the experiment with different-sized objects. Graph the size vs. the angle at which each one was first detected by your eye.

Try this experiment in light that is either dimmer or brighter than the lighting for the first experiment. Use a light meter to quantify the level of light. Make a graph of light level vs. angle of first observation.

Try running the experiment with the volunteer gently shaking each object as he or she moves it along the foam board. How does this affect your angles of first observation?

Test the peripheral vision of a number of people to determine the influence of age, gender, eye color, color blindness, etc. on peripheral vision. Check with your science teacher to see if you are required to obtain written consent prior to recruiting people for your experiments, and read over the helpful notes in
Projects Involving Human Subjects on the Science Buddies website.

Ask an Expert

The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

Related Links

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Optometrist

Optometrists are the primary caretakers of our most important sense—vision. They diagnose and detect problems not only with vision, but with the health of the eye and the whole body. Based on their diagnoses, they prescribe glasses, contact lenses, and medications; refer patients to opthamologists for surgery; or develop treatment plans, like vision therapy, to help correct for deficits in depth perception. Their work helps people live better at every stage of life.
Read more

Neurologist

Each time your heart beats, or you breathe, think, dream, smell, see, move, laugh, read, remember, write, or feel something, you are using your nervous system. The nervous system includes your brain, spinal cord, and a huge network of nerves that make electrical connections all over your body. Neurologists are the medical doctors who diagnose and treat problems with the nervous system. They work to restore health to an essential system in the body.
Read more

News Feed on This Topic

,
,

Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results! Learn more about the News Feed

Looking for more science fun?

Try one of our science activities for quick, anytime science explorations. The perfect thing to liven up a rainy day, school vacation, or moment of boredom.

Can you suggest any improvements or ideas?(Enter "no" if you have none.)

characters left

Overall, how would you rate the quality of this project?

Excellent
Very good
Good
OK
Poor

What is your enthusiasm for science after doing your project?

Very high
High
Moderate
Low
Very low

Compared to a typical science class, please tell us how much you learned doing this project.

Much more
More
About the same
Less
Much less

Optional:Attach a picture of your project (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG only)

Optional:Caption for picture

characters left

You can find this page online at: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBio_p016.shtml

You may print and distribute up to 200 copies of this document annually, at no charge, for personal and classroom educational use. When printing this document, you may NOT modify it in any way. For any other use, please contact Science Buddies.